Reprinted Articles

This article will explain why a Unique Selling Position (USP) is critical to your success. Your marketing exists in a confusing and complex world. Think for a minute about how many choices you have as a consumer in just about any product category. Its not unusual to have dozens, if not hundreds or even thousands of alternatives when you’re shopping for a product or service.

If you don’t believe me just search the Internet for common products to buy and look at the search results. You could be faced with alternatives in the millions.

That’s a good thing right? Sure . . . if you’re the consumer. What about all of us marketing professionals who come to work everyday and try to find better ways of selling? How do we survive in such a world?

If Your Advertising Doesn’t Make You Different, You’ve Missed the Mark. The first thing your advertising must do is show your customer how you’re different from everyone else. I was consulting with a small business client the other day and we went to the yellow pages for her product category and saw a perfect example of how advertising should not be done..

There were pages upon pages of ads with one thing in common. They were all alike. You could have substituted one company name for another without changing the ad in the slightest and it still would have made sense to the customer.

This was obviously a problem for all those companies–but an opportunity for my client! He (or she) who differentiates–wins!

When there’s no obvious difference, your customers will decide based on who has the best price. When customers are faced with hundreds of choices but dont see any difference between one business and another, what happens? The only thing they can compare is price, so that’s how they make their choice. If your differences arent clear, price will be the deciding factor for your customers. That’s not the ideal thing for you and your business. And it’s not that good for your customer either–especially if the value of your business is best appreciated through a long-term relationship with your customer. Customers who come to you because you have the best price will go to your competitors as soon as they find one with a better price. What if you’re the fastest gun in the West? But no matter how fast you are, there will always someone faster. That’s not a long-term game. It’s better and smarter to differentiate.

If you can differentiate yourself, you can charge higher prices. Companies who effectively demonstrate their differences from the competition can justify higher prices. The lowest price does not always get the business. Just think for a minute. You don’t always buy the cheapest product or service. Even if you’re a world champion cheapskate you can differentiate between bruised and fresh produce. You’ll pay a higher price for the fresh vegetables. Correct?

Are your customers any different? No. Certainly, you must have a reasonable price, but if you have highlighted an important difference in your product or service, customers will pay extra to have that benefit.

One of the most important paths to increased sales, more satisfied customers and better profits is to find the important point which makes your business different from your competitors. Then be sure to make that obvious in your advertising.

Tags: Business Promotion